And a Whisper Will Be Heard
by ainokitsune
Summary: Comment-fic. Prompt: Dean, dissociative fugue.


_Comment-fic for the H/C meme at hoodie_time on livejournal. Prompt: dissociative fugues._

_Set sometime after Dark Side of the Moon, in an indeterminate time and place.  
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**And a Whisper Will Be Heard**

He lingered by the crossing, boots planted in the dust. He fiddled briefly with the golden stalk of dry stiff grass he'd pulled up somewhere, peered along the tracks in both directions, then turned slightly and squinted into the blue empty sky.

There were no clouds, but the starlings in the trees kicked up a ruckus that spread to the cornfields on every side. Noise and chaos, but nothing he could see.

He cleared his throat and rubbed briefly at his chest. He didn't know what he thought he was waiting for.

Best to just keep moving.

When he crossed the tracks the birds settled, the cacophony winding down into occasional bursts of chatter. A wind swept out of the empty sky, stirring the fields in waves.

* * *

And he was standing in this empty room while the breeze tossed the trees outside and his hands were open and empty at his sides. And he didn't know how to answer for what he'd done. And the sunlight picked out the haze of dust on the surface of the table by the window. It shivered in the cobwebs in the corners and skipped across the bubbles in the window glass.

Tiny imperfections.

He shut his eyes and forced himself to inhale. The air tasted cold, and wet.

"Dean," he said, eyes still closed, so he could feel the word reverberate in his chest.

"_Dean."_

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* * *

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White walls, the siding of a gas station. Small and squatting on a strangely aligned corner, a five-way stop with an ice-cream-'n-hot-dogs place parked across the road, and a sky-blue pickup truck pulled up alongside with crates of apples loaded in back.

He just wanted some water, and maybe a candy bar. He sat outside under the window, cross-legged in the short, bristly grass, and watched the sun bake the five converging roads, the endless fields, the distant, naked trees. Indian summer. The chocolate melted a little, just where he was holding it, but it was still sweet. Still good.

When the truck pulled out onto the nearest road, he got to his feet and followed. It disappeared quickly enough, curving around a corner, the rumble of its engine swallowed quickly by the green fields and the sky, but that was okay.

The road stayed under his feet, and he kept going.

He'd catch a ride when he could.

* * *

The answer would be easy. Sam would make it be easy. Bend it until it broke if he had to, but it was going to _work_.

The angels couldn't find his brother. But he wasn't an angel, wasn't limited like that. And it had taken some doing and a couple of phone calls, some ritual herbs and a little chanting, but he'd managed to scrounge up a location. Accurate to within five hours, at least, and that was a place to start.

He had the car. All of his brother's stuff was shoved in the backseat because Dean had, apparently, walked away with nothing. Just his clothes, his boots. He hadn't even shut the door when he left.

Sam realized he was clenching his fists on the steering wheel until the tendons stood out in his knuckles. He forced himself to relax. Pushed a long breath out through his nose.

This was going to work.

* * *

Ugly little Midwestern town, stores squatting on a two-lane main drag. Auto shop of whitewashed cinderblock, convenience store selling bread and beer. Pizza place, hardware store. He stopped by a tiny park and sat on the bench with his hands on his knees. Tilted his head back to look up at the sky through the long black branches of a tree.

Branches like spider silk, full of open spaces in between. Threads and tendons and muscles, tearing apart from one another, pulling open, letting in the light. Thick dark veins honeycombed with hollow light.

He smiled.

He didn't even register the rumble of an engine, motoring slowly up the road like a prowling beast. The noise of it didn't disturb him, didn't even catch his attention until suddenly it stopped and he realized it was close, idling alongside the road, wheel up on the grass.

He let his gaze settle on the huge black vehicle and the figure unfolding itself from the driver's side. A big man, young but serious-faced. The sort of person who could probably do some heavy-duty damage if he wanted.

He had that sort of look.

The breeze stirred the branches and their reflection moved over the surface of the car. Like the waves of some ocean, somewhere.

The serious young man opened his mouth.

He said, "Dean."

* * *

He wanted to grab his brother and drag him bodily into the car. His hands twitched where they rested on the smooth metal of the Impala's roof. His stomach was trying to crawl up his throat and Sam swallowed convulsively. He wasn't going to get sick, for God's sake. Or break down crying. Just because Dean had run from him...

He pressed his lips together, briefly, and cautiously paced around the car, stepping carefully across baked-dry grass. Dean was watching him from a bench on a small rise, under a black and leafless tree, face open and guileless. The sky behind the tree burned blue and radiant.

Sam swallowed again. Fear shivered under his skin, nerves sparking with a kind of shapeless, formless horror. Something wasn't right.

Dean had dust on his boots.

"Hi," his brother said, and Sam stopped short.

"Dean?" he breathed, through lips gone suddenly numb.

His brother didn't stir, just went on sitting with his hands open and resting on his knees, his head tilted a little to the side, painted in the shadows of the tree and the light of the autumn sun.

"It's m—" Sam paused, almost physically choked on his next words, on his terrible nausea. "It's me. It…it's Sammy." His voice had shrunk almost to nothing.

Dean nodded. He said, "Okay."

He turned his head away, slightly, and blinked out at the asphalt and a sudden rush of leaves skittering over its surface.

"Dean," Sam whispered.

He let his eyes shut once, briefly.

Then he was grabbing his brother and hauling him toward the car.

Dean yelped, tried to pull away, and Sam tightened his grip. Tendons in his hands, cables and cords stretched over bone, over steel. Blood vessels and muscles, holding on, dragging Dean stumbling down the hill.

"What the hell is your problem?" His brother was demanding, twisting and yanking. "Get off. Get off!"

"You don't get to leave me," Sam hissed, even as Dean managed to wrench himself clear enough to stagger into the side of the car where he turned, at bay. "You don't. You _don't. Dean._"

They were both breathing hard and Sam's voice was tearing. Dean's eyes shifted quickly from side to side, and he licked his lips once, briefly.

"Who—" he began, and Sam surged into his space, clapping a hand across his mouth. He wouldn't hear it. _Wouldn't._

"No," he said, "Nonono. Not like this. Get in the car. Not like this."

Dean stared up at him, eyes huge.

He got in the car.

* * *

Dean had a smear of chocolate on his thumb. Sam could see it easily because Dean was sitting with both hands holding onto the edge of the seat, his head turned away from Sam and his gaze fixed on some point outside the window. Maybe the park bench. Maybe the tree, or the sky.

The car was idling but Sam couldn't bring himself to put it in gear. Couldn't rest his foot on the gas. Just sat there in the driver's seat breathing next to his brother who didn't turn his head, didn't even look.

Sam reached out, and grabbed the fabric of his brother's jacket. Just the sleeve, blue and coarse and heavy. Squeezed so hard he feared his fingers would punch through the material.

"Dean," he said.

Dean turned his head.

There was a weight in Sam's pocket. A small weight, a tiny weight. A mistake. It had been a mistake. That's all.

"_Dean,"_ he'd said, _"I—you can have this back. I kept it._

"_You can have it back."_

He shouldn't have tried to give it back.

The amulet was in his pocket, heavy and warm. Sam could rest his hand on it, could hold onto that echo of what he'd had, of the thing he'd watched crumble away. But to do so he'd have to let go of his brother.

He didn't let go of his brother.

-end-

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_Title from Yehuda Amichai's "The Place Where We Are Right."_


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